NEW MUSIC REVIEWS - THE PERFECT CUT

Mike McColgan (former singer of Dropkick Murphies)

VARIOUS ARTISTS - Give 'Em The Boot III (Hellcat/ Epitaph)
By Jacob Rueda
added: 05/01/02

Communism is good. At least that's what some of the artists are saying in yet another installment in Hellcat's Give 'Em The Boot series of samplers (only 5.99 at Hot Topic!). Actually, they don't really say that, but the way the music sounds from most artists, they might as well though one group on the sampler does make it clear: Christianity is stupid. 

I have never heard the first Boot record, though I would like to. I have the second one in the series and it's actually got some fantastic tracks (from Tiger Army to Vanity 5- excellent bands in my opinion). This one lacks a little in the distribution of songs throughout the record. It's like the first 70% of the album is hard-hitting punk rock and the rest is mellow music. The best tracks were by Tiger Army (again) with their very beautiful "Power Of Moonlite" and Joe Strummer and The Mescalero's "Global A Go-Go" with their (gasp!) electronic intro. I don't think that I could be disappointed by the works of these two fine groups. King Django's "Precipice" is a great break from the rest of the album with its reggae-rock ambience and excellent production work. The Pietaster's "Nothing Good To Eat" is raucous number worthy of repeat play with it's political commentary and danceable Temptations-esque feel and trumpets- definitely worth your attention. Other good ones are Nekromantik's "Who Killed The Cheerleader?", Agnostic Front's "Liberty", Hepcat's "Beautiful" and The Slacker's "Information Error". 

The shoulder-shrugging to "nyeh!" tracks are the Dropkick Murphy's "The Legend of Finn MacCumhail". One comment here: I saw these guys live at the Warped Tour a few years back. What a show! Singing to "Boys On The Docks" with the crowd was so much fun. I never thought Oi! Punk could so entertaining. Unfortunately, some stupid kids decided to make a big deal out of it by flipping the band off and telling them to fuck off. Al Barr, the lead singer, paid them no mind until a fight broke out with the band and these stupid kids. To the Dropkick Murphy's credit, I thought they played a fine set with an impressive intro of bagpipe players representing different nationalities. This song in the comp does little justice to their catalog, I think. I have two of their releases, but it was with their old lead singer Mike McColgan. I think that's what made the band sound so good in the first place to me. He was an energetic vocalist that didn't fluff his music with pretentious punk-rock royalty bullshit. Al Barr, to his credit, does his best. But I must admit that it was weird to hear him sing some of the older tunes because I was used to hearing McColgan sing them. I don't know. I hate to say it, but some of their newer stuff gets old after a while. But they're still around so there is some kind of element that they are maintaining to keep a lot of their fans happy. 

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